Clay Fuller, the Trump-endorsed Republican hoping to replace former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress, asked the president to pardon his daughter during an appearance at an event in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District.
“Sir, the endorsement was the honor of my lifetime, but I was wondering if you could do me one more favor?” Fuller asked President Donald Trump before a crowd gathered at Coosa Steel Corporation for Trump’s economic address. “My beautiful daughter is here, Tallulah. She got detention to come and see you speak today. Could you pardon her, please?
“Tallulah, you are fully pardoned,” Trump replied. “Don’t worry. Just tell the teacher I said it’s fine.”
Trump endorsed Fuller before the March 10 special election to fill Greene’s seat in Congress. Greene announced her resignation in November following the disintegration of her relationship with the president over, among other things, her support for the release of files regarding the federal government’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
Greene was not in attendance at Thursday’s event as she has continued to be a vocal critic of Trump, particularly his foreign policy as it pertains to Israel and Venezuela.
For Trump’s part, the president did not mention Greene as he embraced other high-profile Georgians, including U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas Herschel Walker, who apparently flew home for the occasion, and Georgia Bulldogs quarterback Gunner Stockton.
“We’ve got to vote,” Walker said. “If we don’t do that, we will lose this country because men should not be in women’s sports. I know what a woman is.”
Georgia has so-called ‘jungle primaries,’ which means that unless the winner receives more than 50% of the vote, the two best-performing candidates next month, regardless of party, will proceed to an April 7 runoff.
Trump on Thursday also alluded to Georgia’s other competitive elections, including this November’s U.S. Senate race featuring Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA).
“He’s easy to beat,” he said. “He’s a real stiff. We don’t want people like that representing Georgia. Who would think that Georgia has a stiff anyway?”
Trump’s trip to Georgia coincided with new data on Thursday that found the U.S. ran a $901.5 billion trade deficit last year, a slight decrease from 2024 but only by 0.2%, or $2.1 billion, despite the president’s aggressive tariff policy.
Nevertheless, Trump claimed his 50% steel tariffs helped save Coosa Steel from bankruptcy.
“Without tariffs, what would you do? You know what? Everybody would be bankrupt,” he said. “Everybody, the whole country would be bankrupt.”
Trump also took the opportunity to criticize those challenging his emergency power tariffs before the Supreme Court, which could rule as early as Friday that his fentanyl and Liberation Day duties are unconstitutional.
“I have to wait for this decision,” he said. “I’ve been waiting forever, forever, and the language is clear: that I have the right to do it as president. I have the right to put tariffs on, for national security purposes, countries that have been ripping us off for years.”
Trump mostly kept to his script, emphasizing last week’s jobs report, which found 172,000 new positions were added to the private sector during January.
Trump also cited the $18 billion in private investment he claims has been announced during the first year of his second term, in addition to a strong stock market, amid criticism about his inaction regarding the cost of living.
“You noticed what word have you not heard over the last two weeks? Affordability,” he said. “Because I’ve won, I’ve won affordability. I had to go out and talk about it.”
Although he promoted to his “pro-job, pro-worker, pro-child” record regarding taxes, deregulation, energy, healthcare, housing, and even his tax-advantaged Trump Accounts for American children through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the president did veer into unplanned territory.
At one point, Trump lamented the lack of media coverage of his decision to donate his presidential salary rather than keep it.
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“We’ve had wealthy presidents in the history of our country — there’s never been a president that waived his salary,” he said. “A couple of million bucks. Peanuts.”
